urllib's urlencode returning weird encoded results

I'm trying to use Facebook's REST api, and am encoding a JSON string/dictionary using urllib.urlencode. The result I get however, is different from the correct encoded result (as displayed by pasting the dictionary in the attachment field here http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/rest/stream.publish/). I was wondering if anyone could offer any help.

Thanks.

EDIT:

I'm trying to encode the following dictionary:

{"media": [{"type":"flash", "swfsrc":"http://shopperspoll.webfactional.com/media/flashFile.swf", "height": '100', "width": '100', "expanded_width":"160", "expanded_height":"120", "imgsrc":"http://shopperspoll.webfactional.com/media/laptop1.jpg"}]}

This is the encoded string using urllib.urlencode:

"media=%5B%7B%27swfsrc%27%3A+%27http%3A%2F%2Fshopperspoll.webfactional.com%2Fmedia%2FflashFile.swf%27%2C+%27height%27%3A+%27100%27%2C+%27width%27%3A+%27100%27%2C+%27expanded_width%27%3A+%27160%27%2C+%27imgsrc%27%3A+%27http%3A%2F%2Fshopperspoll.webfactional.com%2Fmedia%2Flaptop1.jpg%27%2C+%27expanded_height%27%3A+%27120%27%2C+%27type%27%3A+%27flash%27%7D%5D开发者_开发问答"

It's not letting me copy the result being thrown out from the facebook rest documentation link, but on copying the above dictionary in the attachment field, the result is different.

urllib.encode isn't meant for urlencoding a single value (as functions of the same name are in many languages), but for encoding a dict of separate values. For example, if I had the dict {"a": 1, "b": 2} it would produce the string "a=1&b=2".

First, you want to encode your dict as JSON.

data = {"media": [{"type":"flash", "swfsrc":"http://shopperspoll.webfactional.com/media/flashFile.swf", "height": '100', "width": '100', "expanded_width":"160", "expanded_height":"120", "imgsrc":"http://shopperspoll.webfactional.com/media/laptop1.jpg"}]}

import json
json_encoded = json.dumps(data)

You can then either use urllib.encode to create a complete query string

import urllib
urllib.encode({"access_token": example, "attachment": json_encoded})
# produces a long string in the form "access_token=...&attachment=..."

or use urllib.quote to just encode your attachment parameter

urllib.quote(json_encoded)
# produces just the part following "&attachment="